Delete an Amazon EBS volume
You can delete an Amazon EBS volume that you no longer need. After deletion, its data is gone and the volume can't be attached to any instance. So before deletion, you can store a snapshot of the volume, which you can use to re-create the volume later.
Note
You can't delete a volume if it's attached to an instance. To delete a volume, you must first detach it. For more information, see Detach an Amazon EBS volume from an Amazon EC2 instance.
You can check if a volume is attached to an instance. In the console, on the Volumes page, you can view the state of your volumes.
-
If a volume is attached to an instance, it’s in the
in-use
state. -
If a volume is detached from an instance, it’s in the
available
state. You can delete this volume.
You can delete an EBS volume using one of the following methods.